Guerrilla Tactics- These were unexpected tactics used by Chairman Mao Zedong against the Nationalists like sabotage and subterfuge.
CCP- This was the Chinese Communist Party. It was led by Mao Zedong, and took control after the Nationalists were driven into Taiwan.
PLA- This was the People's Liberation Army. It was the army of the Chinese Communist Party. It was more popular than the other army because it treated the lower class people better.
Communes- These were huge collective farms made when Chairman Mao started his Great Leap Forward. They turned out to be a huge failure, and many people died of starvation.
Permanent Revolution- This was an atmosphere of constant revolutionary fervor, which Mao thought would lead to a perfectly Communist, classless society.
The Little Red Book- This was the book of quotes from Chairman Mao. It was printed in mass quantities and given to everyone as a guide for everyday living.
Redistribution of Wealth- This was the idea that wealth would be taken from the rich and given to the poor to create a less drastic contrast between classes.
New Life Movement- This was Shek's movement to bring people back to traditional Confucian principles such as integrity, propriety, and righteousness. It also emphasized duty within a family.
Great Leap Forward- This was Chairman Mao's failed plan to combine the already-huge collective farms to make communes. It caused the deaths of millions.
Northern Expedition- This was when the Nationalist party and the Communist party worked together to rid China of warlords and imperialists. It ended when Shek started the Shanghai Massacre.
Important People of Communist China
Mao Zedong- This was the leader of the Chinese Communist Party that took over after the Nationalist Party was exiled to Taiwan. He tried to institute the Great Leap Forward, but that ended up being a failure.
Chiang Kai-Shek- This was the leader of the Nationalist Party, called the Guomindang.
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen-
Deng Xiaoping-
President Harry Truman-
Henry Kissinger-
President Richard Nixon-
Joseph Stalin-
Jiang Qing- This was Chairman Mao's fourth wife, who was part of the Gang of Four. This was the group of four people that tried to take over after Chairman Mao's death.
Tank Man- This was the courageous man who stopped a line of four tanks by standing in front of them after the Tienanmen Square Massacre.
Overview of Communist China
Revolutionary Marxism had the effect of splitting up the government into two rival parties. These were the Nationalists and the Communists. The Nationalists were led by Sun Yat-Sen and the Chinese Communist Party was led by Mao Zedong. However, in 1923, the two parties formed an alliance to clear China of the warlords and imperialists. When Chiang Kai-Shek succeeded Sun Yat-Sen, he broke the alliance by starting the Shanghai Massacre. Shek believed that Japan was less dangerous than the Communists and that Communism was a disease of the heart. Shek started the New Life Movement, which aimed to promote Confucian social ethics. During his time as leader of China, he built roads, established a national bank, improved the education system, and extended much of China's railroad. But because of his neglectfulness of any program that would spread any wealth to the poor, he lost some of his support.
Meanwhile, the Communists fled to the Jiangxi Province in the south. Led by Mao Zedong, they staked their hopes upon the peasants instead of the urban working class. In the struggle for power, Mao used guerrilla tactics instead of normal battle tactics, making their forces more difficult to catch and defeat. Eventually, in 1934, the Communists were surrounded, but broke through the Nationalist lines to make their way 6,000 miles to the last Communist base. Only one tenth of his forces made it there alive. In 1945, war broke out again between the Communists and the Nationalists, but this time the Communists won. The Nationalists were forced to flee to Taiwan.
After the Nationalists lost power, Mao Zedong ruled China. He started a movement called the Great Leap Forward, which was supposed to combine all the collective farms to increase productivity. This turned out to be a colossal failure, and resulted in the deaths of almost 15 million people because of starvation. Mao's idea of how to create a classless, perfectly Communist society was to have an atmosphere of constant revolutionary fervor. He did this by creating the Red Guards, young people who destroyed things of the old culture or things that disagreed with the Communist Party. After Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping took over, aiming to westernize China. However, the one thing he failed to do was to bring democracy to China. As a result of this, the college-student protesters in Tienanmen Square were heartlessly run over or shot by tanks in what is now called the Tienanmen Square Massacre.
An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.~Mao Zedong
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Important Terms of Communist China
Important People of Communist China
Overview of Communist China
Revolutionary Marxism had the effect of splitting up the government into two rival parties. These were the Nationalists and the Communists. The Nationalists were led by Sun Yat-Sen and the Chinese Communist Party was led by Mao Zedong. However, in 1923, the two parties formed an alliance to clear China of the warlords and imperialists. When Chiang Kai-Shek succeeded Sun Yat-Sen, he broke the alliance by starting the Shanghai Massacre. Shek believed that Japan was less dangerous than the Communists and that Communism was a disease of the heart. Shek started the New Life Movement, which aimed to promote Confucian social ethics. During his time as leader of China, he built roads, established a national bank, improved the education system, and extended much of China's railroad. But because of his neglectfulness of any program that would spread any wealth to the poor, he lost some of his support.Meanwhile, the Communists fled to the Jiangxi Province in the south. Led by Mao Zedong, they staked their hopes upon the peasants instead of the urban working class. In the struggle for power, Mao used guerrilla tactics instead of normal battle tactics, making their forces more difficult to catch and defeat. Eventually, in 1934, the Communists were surrounded, but broke through the Nationalist lines to make their way 6,000 miles to the last Communist base. Only one tenth of his forces made it there alive. In 1945, war broke out again between the Communists and the Nationalists, but this time the Communists won. The Nationalists were forced to flee to Taiwan.
After the Nationalists lost power, Mao Zedong ruled China. He started a movement called the Great Leap Forward, which was supposed to combine all the collective farms to increase productivity. This turned out to be a colossal failure, and resulted in the deaths of almost 15 million people because of starvation. Mao's idea of how to create a classless, perfectly Communist society was to have an atmosphere of constant revolutionary fervor. He did this by creating the Red Guards, young people who destroyed things of the old culture or things that disagreed with the Communist Party. After Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping took over, aiming to westernize China. However, the one thing he failed to do was to bring democracy to China. As a result of this, the college-student protesters in Tienanmen Square were heartlessly run over or shot by tanks in what is now called the Tienanmen Square Massacre.
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